Clovely Print - A View from the Beach

The prints are finally dry and now I can take them down, edition them and mount ready for framing.

One of the benefits of using the printmaking process is that you can produce a number of prints - they aren't always identical and its these subtle differences that add to the overall process.  This is called an edition.

An edition can be as few as 2 or can run into the hundreds, but if you are going to produce this many it hardly seems like a "limited" edition!  Most artists tend to produce a maximum edition of 50.  

Editions of prints are numbered, sometimes named, and signed by the artist, usually in pencil.  This is to let the viewer know how many prints are in the edition.  It also confirms that no more will be printed. 

At the beginning of the printing process proofs will be taken to check the colour of the ink and the quality of the print.  An artist can sell up to 3 proofs with the edition.  Instead of seeing the numbers in the bottom left hand corner of the print, the initials AP will appear (which stands for artist's proof).  

The whole edition doesn't have to be printed in one go, but as soon as the full edition has been produced, it is standard to destroy the original lino block by either cutting a hole or damaging mark into them so that the edition cannot be continued.  You don't need to do this with a reduction print as each stage of the process is distructive so there is no way of increasing the edition size.

Here is the final editioned and signed print.  The colour of the paper has been washed out in the scanning process - the real colour is the same as the top picture in this post.

Next job to is to get them mounted and framed.